


where thy heart lies

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 14:04:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13125243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: "Hey, Michael, can I kiss you?" Tilly asks, before she slips down the couch cushions and ends up half on the floor with caramelised pineapple drink still in hand.





	where thy heart lies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soupytwist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupytwist/gifts).



"Hey, Michael, can I kiss you?" Tilly asks, before she slips down the couch cushions and ends up half on the floor with caramelised pineapple drink still in hand. It's cute. Michael has never been drunk like this in her life and she's not sure she likes it but it seems like there might be compensations. Tilly waves at her.

"Jesus, Tilly, how smashed _are_ you?" Stamets wants to know, like he has any moral high ground to stand on, or lie down on, so he can stare at the ceiling and pronounce dreamily on the kaleidoscope patterns of the mycellial universe. 

"At least I fucking ask," Tilly says, without getting up. "Not like some fuckers, yeah I mean you, Ariel Guruswamy, sixth-grade biology, I hope your dick fell off."

"Sure," Michael says. Why not. Tilly kisses her and it's lovely, soft and mostly pineapple. 

"Biology," Stamets is saying, "is really indistinguishable from physics at at quantum level."

"Sure," Michael says. She hopes Tilly will kiss her again, but if she doesn't, that's okay. It's been okay. Within acceptable parameters. Tilly and Stamets dragged her out for _fun_ and _relaxation_ and the USS Discovery hasn't always been fun and it's never been relaxing but this. Is okay. Yes.

_Michael_ , Amanda's voice says inside her mind, warm like desert sand. _I'm proud of you_.

Amanda wanted Michael to know love, to know friendship. For a moment Michael almost feels her presence. 

"If he had one," Tilly says suddenly. "Ariel Guruswamy. If he had a dick. If he didn't I hope something else fell off. Maybe his face."

She kisses Michael again. Stamets laughs and claps his hands. Culber comes running in, properly running, so his feet are skidding on the polished bar floor and the doors almost don't open fast enough. "Paul," he says. "you have to— Paul—"

"What," Stamets says lazily, and then sits up with a start. They're somewhere else. Culber swears and punches a wall that isn't there, and Michael's breath has caught in her throat. 

“Hey,” Tilly says uncertainly. “Has Deck 5 always been…. on Vulcan?”

Good eye, Michael thinks. This doesn’t look like Vulcan or at least, it doesn't look like what Humans think Vulcan looks like. (Inside her head Amanda murmurs, _Michael, you, too are Human._ ) The landscape is all crags and sharp edges, silvered by moonlight and frost. Deserts release heat like oppression after dark.

"It's in the water," Culber says urgently, "it's some sort of ergotism, it's making us all weird in the head, we need to get to sickbay."

He hasn't said if it's a hallucination or if their minds have acquired the power of creation. But if this isn't real, Michael thinks, it's realistic in a way no dream ever is. It isn't just particular place on Vulcan, but a particular night, a particular tradition. Around her Culber, Tilly and Stamets are standing in their Starfleet uniforms as thought they were still gathered in Discovery's hallway, but Michael strides forwards across the sand and knows that somewhere close by, warm in their long robes and hoods, Michael, Spock and Amanda are walking over the crags out from Shi'Kahr. It was Michael's birthday, or perhaps Spock's; they celebrated them the same way. With a picnic and a journey out of the city, to where the skies were clear – to where one might see Earth, a wanderer among the fixed stars.

_Like you two will be, one day_ , Amanda said, fondly; they both dreamed of Starfleet.

And there are noises in the dark now. High children's voices, a woman's laughter, a girl saying, "Spock, _stop it_ " – because they're siblings after all. Crunching footsteps, as desert sand compacts under solid boots, getting closer all the time. And this may be a hallucination or a genuine time-travel scenario but whatever it is, Michael's been drinking for about the first time in her life and so much has changed in the years since this moment and she knows she can't bear this, to see with hindsight whom she used to be. 

"We have to go," she says, "we have to go now." 

Even as she says it she's thinking it's meaningless, they have no idea how they got here and no way to know how they might return. But willpower is enough, magically. A firm step forwards and this is _Discovery_ , clean and clean-lined. "What," Tilly says, reeling, hitting the wall. She gets herself up and wobbles, but doesn't fall over again. "What the _fuck_."

"Ergotism," Stamets says, mildly, to Culber. "Hugh. For serious."

"What do you want me to call it?" Culber says, frustrated. "The freak reaction between the spore drive and the life support systems that's put LSD in the water so we're all on a mass hysterical _folie-à_ -million? Because I've got to tell you, it doesn't exactly ripple off the tongue!"

His hands are balled into fists. Stamets puts an arm around him and says something that sounds suspiciously like _I love you_. "Whatever," Culber says, "whatever, we need to get to sickbay."

It's too late. They've been staggering along somehow and they've got maybe a hundred metres down the hallway, almost to the turbolift. Sickbay is only two decks down. But this is a warm evening on a planetary surface, the air replete with cinnamon and other spices Michael can't identify. The four of them are on a fire escape, looking down from above at a night market, lit by bare bulbs and covered by cloth awnings. 

"It's going to rewire our brains permanently!" Culber is insisting. "Especially yours! Alcohol makes it worse! The antidote's in sickbay and we need to get there now!"

"Hugh," Stamets says. "Look down, damn you."

Culber looks down and Michael looks up, at the spread of constellations gauzed by a smoky sky, and then turns around. The fire escape passes a balcony with open French windows, so Michael can see through to the room beyond. She recognises the cooked-brick architectural style. Human colonists built like that, long ago, on the first world they knew other than Earth: Alpha (Alpha), the only habitable planet around Alpha Centauri. 

Culber turns away from the view. "It's good to be back," he says.

"We weren't always at war," Stamets says to Michael, gesturing her inside, and Michael never cries but she wants to now. She goes in to see where Culber and Stamets lived, back before they were soldiers. Culber is muttering again about _lethal concentrations_ and _permanent brain damage_ , but he follows Michael and Tilly comes in after. It's an open, comfortable space. There are medical textbooks spread around, framed photographs and artwork, a soft throw in Starfleet colours, which Michael has seen in the Academy gift shop. All the windows are open to the spicy air. It smells like good food and the incense-based religions of some of Michael's old crewmates.

"It wasn't like this when we left," Culber says, and Michael understands that this, too, is a memory, not a real place. She imagines the paperwork that would bring an academic and a doctor into Starfleet in a hurry, imagines the rushed departure, and the locking up of a place to which you might never return. Culber is looking around with wonderment in his eyes, as well a delicate misery. Stamets just looks tired.

"It's okay," he says, and for a deranged moment Michael thinks he might be talking to her, might be telling her that it's okay, it's okay she opened fire on the Klingons and brought everyone they know to war. But Stamets is looking at Culber. "We'll come back some day," he says, and they're back on _Discovery_.

Michael blinks hard, pushes her hand against the wall just to feel its hard, polished surface, to feel the consequences of her choices. "Hey," Tilly says, at her side. "Hey. It's cool. We'll figure this out."

She's still holding the pineapple martini and it still has a paper umbrella in it. Michael is so fond of her that for a minute she can't breathe. They all get into the turbolift and it's a squeeze for four people, three of whom are very drunk, but Michael is comforted by the others, their warmth and presence. 

Sickbay is bustling with Culber's colleagues, and the crew getting in line and rolling up their sleeves, ready for their dose of antidote. Lorca is there, pushing people where they need to go, bodily if he has to. The computer is making plaintive PA announcements. _Red alert. Report to sickbay. Don't drink the water. Try not to think of things._

"Lucky for you," Culber is saying, maybe to Stamets but probably to all of them, "that I am so awesome at my job that we had an antidote synthesised basically five minutes after you all started collectively tripping." 

Because they're drunk they get to skip the queue. Michael steps up for her anti-ergotism shot, braces herself for the needle prick, and then everything goes quiet. The crew are gone, or mostly gone. A couple of people are sitting on the beds, there are a couple of nurses to tend to them, it's not an emergency situation any more. Stamets is still standing next to Michael and they look at each other in confusion. 

"Okay, then," he says doubtfully, and goes out into the hallway. Again, it looks normal and familiar, as though the whole weird LSD thing was just a passing nightmare. But a little way down they find Tilly, who's leaning against the wall with tears running down her face. "Tilly, what is it?" Michael asks, and follows Tilly's pointing finger.

At the end of the corridor, coming out of the turbolift, another Tilly is laughing, saying something to Michael at her right side. She's graceful in her movement, still with the lovely hair though it's now shot through with silver, and carrying the captain's pips on her collar without a trace of self-consciousness. Michael – the other version of Michael – is wearing a Starfleet officer's uniform with full insignia. They walk out of sight, still laughing, as beautiful as anything Michael is ever likely to see. 

"This isn't _Discovery_ ," Stamets says softly, from behind Michael. "It's not a warship."

He's right. It has the same internal design but it's running on conventional power, the warp engines thrumming gently through the skin of the ship. The other people in the hallway are scientists and explorers, without the knives of tension in their bodies. Tilly's still crying, still holding her pineapple martini. "I don't get it," she says. "I don't get why I'm seeing this."

"You'll bring us here someday," Stamets says. "Take us home now, sweetie."

And just like that, they're back in sickbay. Culber stabs Michael's arm with the hypospray. The world lurches blurrily, then leaps into sharp focus. Michael's so tired she could fall asleep where she stands, but Stamets reaches out to steady her, then submits to his own shot. 

"Don't come crying to me about your hangover," Culber yells after Stamets, as he leads Tilly and Michael gently out. "Don't you be like, oh, Hugh, just give me something, I have this terrible headache—"

"I'm actually kind of sober," Stamets confides, once the shouting is almost out of earshot. "You guys want coffee or something?"

Michael considers telling him that caffeine on top of a fungal hallucinogen on top of an already-medically-inadvisable quantity of alcohol is far from an optimal course of action, but doesn't, because Stamets already knows all that. She follows him to his and Culber's quarters and sits on a stool next to the counter as Stamets brews real coffee from his precious limited supply. 

"That smells good," Tilly says, and finally surrenders the cocktail glass to the replicator, the glass crunching prettily as it drops out of sight. "Hey, Michael. I still kinda want to kiss you, if you're okay with that?"

Her eyes are wide, a little uncertain. But she, like Stamets – and Michael too – is mostly sober now. And not consumed by the fungal hallucinogen, either. She's asking a straightforward question to which one may give an honest answer.

"I'd like that," Michael says. She closes her eyes and lets Tilly kiss her. It's just as lovely as it was the last time, and Michael keeps her eyes closed and wonders if this is going to happen a lot from now on. Stamets makes quiet whooping noises, so Tilly has to break off and tell him to shut the hell up. He snorts and says, _you want coffee or not, cadet_ , and Tilly does, but she's going to outrank him someday so he'd better stop being gross.

Michael listens to them bicker, her hands warmed by her cup. In her memory, Amanda is telling her of the fixed stars against which Earth and Vulcan wander. Come back sometimes, she said to Michael and Spock. Back to where thy heart lies, wherever that may or may yet be.


End file.
